MY CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS

Deck the halls - or in our case, a corner...

Forgot to show off the photos of this year's Christmas tree! 

The corner behind the tree

From the left, swinging round that corner - the top of the bookcase. The picture is my father, circa 1910, handtinted and oil on board. Wasn't he sweet? Hope you are also admiring that new wallpaper I mentioned back in the Summer.

The tree in all its glory

Swinging round to the right - note the Santa Claus lights on top of the mirror and the snowmen, tinsel, baubles and lights inside the fire. Also the twigs with lights to the right. Nothing exceeds like excess, and you GOTTA have tinsel!

Closeup of the top of the tree - we have a Santa instead of an angel (because I couldn't find one that 'spoke' to me)

How could I forget about posting these the minute I finished decorating the tree? Flu. Bad flu. Ladies' Flu - waaaay worse than Man Flu, because we still have to stagger round cooking, cleaning etc. Anyway, I got those decorations up the 1st of the month - and just realised they are still sitting in a folder on the computer, un-admired, un-bragged about.

'Bokeh' tree, Christmas 2009

You can see the difference a decent camera makes. My old one, bless it, was never the same after Peter dropped it... it only took 9 pictures then I had to download them before it would take any more. An experience guaranteed to reduce me to a foul-mouthed raving harridan in a matter of seconds - I have enough trouble trying to focus pix correctly as it is (the new camera has a downloadable pdf of instructions, not an instruction book - 135 pages! So who's going to scroll through that lot?)

So I flatter myself this out-of-focus pic (the best of the bunch, incidentally) gives that wonderful 'bokeh' effect. But it's actually just a very rubbish picture.

I also think this year's decorations are way better, although it's the same basic set-up as this is the only corner the tree can go in! The main differences are... go on, spot the difference (NO prizes as I'm telling you the answers) is an extra bookcase on the left, and a fireplace to the right of the tree. Also, I bundled up a white cloth under the tree to cover that awful metal stand.

So there you are!